John sat in the temple of the Light Island and stared up into the heavens. He knew the Father of Light was watching. He had made his presence known before. Waiting patiently by the pool of condensed Elental Essence, he sat with his legs crossed.
“You are wise,” his own voice eventually spoke to him.
The stars in the night sky moved from left to right, forming the outline of a gargantuan arm in the process. It swiped the firmant clean of all unwanted dots of light, be they silver, gold, red, or any other colour of celestial body. All of the empyrean here was a window into the plane of light and therefore under the domain of the featureless humanoid torso that ford from the stars the hand’s movent left behind.
The Father of Light borrowed the Gar’s voice to speak to him. “I have watched you. I rember when we first spoke, when I coerced from you the truth of your awakening pride.” The words were accompanied by few, large gestures. The empty head tilted, awaiting a response.
“I was on to you using my voice back then,” John recalled, relaxing his posture to look up at the sky. “Really did not appreciate it. The questions you asked were pertinent though. They helped put my goals into perspective.”
“Which is all I ever desired,” the Father of Light said, his outline sparkling in a myriad of colours. “Tell , what drives you to seek audience with today? Is it advice? Do you wish to convey a ssage to the Celestial Devourer?”
“I can contact Stirwin with a summoning circle, no need to bother you with that,” John assured. “If we have the ti, why did you open up with calling wise?”
“Because that is the proper way to describe soone who has understood the trials they went through. You can be impatient, you can be angry, and you can be arrogant, I have seen it all in the mories of the Celestial Devourer. You do, however, understand when it is appropriate to sit and wait. You are not entitled, even when your pride may urge you to feel that way. I appreciate that in soone who changes the world.”
“Not going to lie, I love every word you just used to stroke my ego, Father of Light.”
“Call Wylus.”
‘That only leaves the Mother of Water,’ John thought, feeling a bit tingly after having gained a total of ten kilo of the Celexiums. With what else he had stockpiled, forging or upgrading another item or two was now in the cards. ‘Does it even make sense to discuss who of us should get a new armant or should I just drop it all on Marathyu? He does what he wants anyway, or what his instincts want. Madness and genius, shared traits, too often.’
“It may worry that you ignored the parts where I called you impatient, angry, and arrogant.”
“Sorry, Wylus, I have so many lovers that tell that on the daily, I learned to just sift that out.” John stretched out his legs. He couldn’t help but wonder who else was seeing this. Without the advice crocodile around, the temple was pretty much vacated. That being said, John could not imagine the Father of Light revealing his na to the entire island. Either all of this was a direct line or just the sounds were. “In any case, I would like to ask a favour, that’s what makes seek audience today.”
“Let hear it then.”
“Can you help change the sky tomorrow?” he requested. “Here, in the Guild Hall? I wish to confess to the new goddess of the night, Nightingale, and I want it to be bombastic. Do you have that power here?”
“With your agreent, I have half of it,” the Father of Light declared. “Outside this island, my influence is subdued by yours. You are as much Monarch of this space as I am of my plane. It is a rather enigmatic pocket world you have here.”
“Yeah, it really doesn’t agree with the known laws of magic.” John looked around this place, which he had created and could freely edit at any given mont. The only limitations were funds or mana. He had an excess of both. “In any case, do you want sothing in return?”
“Make Nightingale happy,” Wylus requested. “The goddess of the night is one of my family, in her own way. We are tied through our love for the stars and the moon. The night may be the primary domain of the Mother of Shadows, but only the void knows absolute darkness and all days cast shadows. We are linked, my older sister and I, and both of us have interest in the Nightingale.”
“I only have the greatest of intentions,” John assured and then outlined what he had in mind. It took five minutes of explaining, to agree on the signal, to detail what he wished for, and for the Father of Light to explain what he could do beyond the reach of this island. Even with John’s explicit agreent, his powers were limited by the separation of planes.
“Go then,” Wylus said when they were done. “Curry Fade’s aid in this. Expect her to make an actual demand.”
“I’ll see to that.”
Before John’s eyes, the dense outline of stars drifted apart. Bit by bit, until the form of the Father of Light was so blurred it could no longer be recognized. Eventually, it was fully dissolved into the firmant, leaving it every bit the assortnt of sparkling jewels it had been before John had been given audience.
‘Alright, ti to get to the other end of the island,’ he thought.
There was barely anything of significance that was further away from the Light Shrine than the Shadow Shrine. In past tis, walking across the entire Guild Hall would have taken less than ten minutes. Nowadays, the entire base was ten kilotres across. There were capital cities smaller than that. Walking that distance would have been a pain. Luckily, John had access to teleporters.
Two teleportations later, he erged by the entrance of the Shadow Shrine. One of the entrances, rather. On the fifth and final upgrade of the Shadow Shrine, it had created an underdark tunnel system, in which the location of the Shadow Shrine steadily changed. John set out to find it in the only way that would net any success: by stepping into the darkness and leaving all light behind.
He had been ready to be embraced by the absolute dark, but the Darkvision the Blessing of Nightingale had granted him left him able to see even when there was no more light in the expansive cave system. Tunnels that were sotis conveniently broad and flat-floored were interspersed with the many narrows and falls of natural hollows in the bedrock.
All of that suddenly ca to an end. One step John took was the last that echoed through the cave, then only the sound of dripstones could be heard behind him. Advancing through a darkness that was complete even in its lack of textures, he advanced, until he ca across a pillar of liquid. It spiralled inside itself, half the streams going up, the other half going down, pooling under the ceiling and on the floor. The Shadow Essence kept cascading, with no regard for gravity or other laws of physics.
John walked around it in search. Once, twice, three tis, always searching for strands of hair that inexplicably hung in the air. Four, five, six, he continued circling, with nothing to orient himself but the heart of the shrine. After the seventh circle, he saw the white strands, spreading out in all directions like the silk of a spider’s web, reaching distances even his Darkvision couldn’t penetrate.
At the heart of it all stood the Mother of Shadow, Fade. She was gorgeous beyond all earthly description, a beauty made with the earliest of earthly desires, her very presence a suggestion and a warning. Black mist cascaded down her form, hiding it like a dress, while her exotic almond eyes beheld his approach, the greyish blue almost normal. She had a slender figure. Her skin was grey and smooth. She smiled, softly, flirtatiously, revealing sharp canines. More of her hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, one of the strands even flowed across her face, but none of them veiled anything. As she walked, they smoothly glided over the floor. As she walked, her legs parted the mist, and were swallowed by it again.
“Nightingale.” Fade’s voice was every bit as alluring as she was. She sounded sweeter and more tempting than any other woman. Although he lacked the emotional closeness to her he had to his harem, John was still tempted to try and claim her.
What he felt at that mont was a sensation he hated and that only she ever created in him. It was a temptation so intense, so absolute, that resisting it violated his base instincts. This was exactly what every married man felt when beholding a gorgeous and willing mistress – the terrible, alluring temptation to leave it all behind and start over with soone else.
John absolutely loathed that he was even capable of feeling this, when he had everything and more what a man could even want. Smiling, Fade now circled around him. She knew exactly what kind of influence she had. Worse, John was pretty certain she didn’t even an to wield it. She just was tempting. There was no active effort on her part for this.
“Am I correct, that brings you here tonight?” the Mother of Shadow asked, her voice like the touch of velvet in his ears. “Goddess of the night, inheritor of Tsukuyomi’s Faith, now to be yours.”
“I want to show her a sky of my own design,” John told the first of all elentals. “I have the aid of the Father of Light, now I request yours.”
“Hmmm,” Fade humd and John took a deep breath. Her hanging strands of hair stretched, but never went taut. Seamlessly, they dispersed and were recreated elsewhere. “You ask of the favour of an empyrean. Can you repay an empyrean?”
“Probably,” John responded with a wry smile. “I’m pretty crafty, you should know that.”
“And you have seen things that no other has seen,” Fade whispered. Each syllable carried to John, no matter the distance.
“You have shown .” The Gar kept on the casual tone, trying his best to keep those urges away by interacting normally with her. “Na what you wish, Fade?”
“What if I wanted you?”
“Then I would feel very flattered,” John responded imdiately, against the protest of his will. He almost started sweating, so much his body resented what he was saying. “However, I have to decline. You’re too dangerous for .”
Fade giggled, then laughed. It was every bit as sinister as it made him wish to jump her. How far would his assertiveness take him with a woman like this? “In all my years, many that they are, I have never, once, craved a man… and you do not change this.” The Mother of Shadows circled around him. “I must admit that I am cold when it cos to companionship. My love is the love of a mother.” Suddenly, she was in front of him. “I have birthed many, yet none,” she hissed erotically into his ear. “You could change that, favoured of the drear.” Her hand trailed over his suit. “When the ti is right, I request a child.”
The Gar had to close his eyes to not have her indescribable beauty before him as he made his decision. “I want my children to be the products of my love,” he told her, “and that’s a bit much for a changed sky anyway, don’t you think?”
“Rejection… what a rare taste,” Fade whispered and backed off, no wrath or other ill feelings in her voice. “It was worth a try. In the end, I will be a grandmother. That will be experience enough.”
“You’re welco of joining my harem the regular way,” John offered, a hint of the eagerness he actually felt at that prospect slipping out. “We can test if you’re truly as incapable of companionship as you think.”
“With strange aeons, perhaps I will consider.” The Mother of Shadow stepped away, the mist swaying with her hips. What kind of glorious ass must have been under that curtain of the deepest purple? “In this era, my purpose is clear. I am Mother of Shadows and I guide my kind. Two boons, I offer thee, one a gust, to be revealed to you soon. The other, your request, for the price of an oath.”
“What oath?”
“When the minute cos, kill the Rat.”
The darkness grew very heavy all of a sudden, as the Mother of Darkness’ flirtatious expression was, for the first ti, replaced with sothing else. Her eyes were open wide, her lips pressed together, and her pupils seed to tremble with otherworldly power. Spider legs and crow wings burst out of her dress, were swallowed by the textureless black floor, spawned and vanished over and over again.
‘For the love of everything, do not say yes,’ he warned himself and swallowed. That he even hesitated was a sign just how weak he was to gorgeous won, especially when they showed the slightest hint of danger. “That also seems a bit much for what I am asking for,” he finally managed to croak.
“At that minute, the Horned Rat’s life will be worthless. I am asking very little.” Fade’s voice was like a tailor’s scissor parting curtain cloth.
“I must refuse either way.”
The spider legs and crow wings faded out of the constant pouring of the first elental’s dress. Her expression relaxed, her smile returned. “Good.”
“Good?” John asked and didn’t receive an answer. Sighing, he skipped out on all the other questions this exchange had opened. Did Fade have an actual grudge against Richard for so reason or were they on the sa side and this had been so kind of test? Who really knew. “Look, I know you, of all shadow elentals, are the most ambitious, sly, and unrestrained, so I don’t fault you for making big asks. Can we get to the point where I haggle you down to a reasonable offer?”
“Then I shall demand nothing,” Fade declared. “I will talk to my younger sibling about your plans. You may leave this place when you desire.”
“…Wait, did I already give you sothing you wanted then?” John wanted to know. “Was it the harem offer? Please tell it was the harem offer.” His pleads were t by a fading smile, as the Mother of Shadow faded into the darkness all around. ‘She’s so nice… and so absolutely dangerous,’ the Gar thought.
He left the place more confused about what to think of her than anything.
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